Public Water

Public Water

Many Americans get their water from public water sources. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) maintains requirements for safe drinking water. However, the rules and regulations set in place by the EPA are minimums for safe drinking water. With water treatment systems installed by American Clear Water you can ensure that the water coming into your home is treated even further to provide you and your family with the safest drinking water. We care about the water your family is drinking and using on a daily basis.

Public Water Experts

American Clear Water has over 20 years of experience in installation of residential water treatment systems and commercial water treatment systems. We are also certified by the Water Quality Association ensuring that we are knowledgeable and experienced in water treatment systems. Please enjoy our blog articles about the treatment of public water sources and contact us today to for a free estimate. We treat community water systems, non-transient non-community water systems, and transient non-community water systems.

Everyone is concerned about the quality of the drinking water in their home. For many a home water filtration system can significantly reduce contaminants that we do not want in our water. Whether you have well water or municipal water, a whole home filtration system may be needed to get the water quality that you want.

Before deciding on a water filtration system for your Central PA home, it is important to understand the types of water provided to your home. The water professionals at American Clear Water divide water into three easy-to-understand classifications: raw, utility and drinking water. Each type of water has different levels of quality. It does not make sense to water your lawn with bottled-quality drinking water. Similarly, you may not want to drink raw water but it is perfect for watering your lawn!

Raw Water

Raw water, regardless of the source, is probably fine for many industrial/commercial purposes, as well as fighting fires and flushing hydrants. But once it reaches your home, you may want to modify it for the end use. For example, for watering the lawn, landscaping and gardening, sediment filtration may be all that is needed to prevent clogging of sprinklers and hose nozzle/hand sprayers. Sometimes, even this water may need further treatment if it stains cement walkways, driveways, brick or stone.

Utility Water

The second water type is utility water for throughout your home. What is utility water? This is water used for anything other than drinking, cooking and ice. If you have well water, a whole home filtration system may include reduction of sediment, iron, sulfur or anything else that stains fixtures or causes odors. To remove sediment, a wide variety of water filtration cartridge filters and automatic back washing filters are available. It maybe be necessary to use filters coupled with other treatment forms like chlorination/retention/de-chlorination and water softening to obtain an acceptable water quality for utility water throughout your home. If you are on municipal water, chlorine/chloramine reduction will also be very beneficial to your appliances and health.

Testing and evaluation by a Water Quality Association (WQA) certified professional is the best way to determine what type whole house filtration is best suited for your individual situation.

Drinking Water

Finally, let’s look at your drinking water. Water that is used for human consumption like drinking, cooking and ice should be safe and enjoyable to use. A great system is a point-of-use system called reverse osmosis (RO). It incorporates several forms of treatment: sediment, carbon and molecular filtration. RO reduces most possible contaminants by over 90% and many over 99%! It produces a water that can match any bottled water. In fact, often bottled water is produced using RO! (Check your bottled water labels.) RO has a separate drinking water faucet that that is installed at the kitchen sink separately from your regular faucet and can also have a line run to your refrigerator for RO water at your water and ice dispensers. RO water is also great for pets and house plants!

Do You Need A Home Water Filtration System?

A whole home water filtration system can take many forms. As repetitive as it sounds, for any water concerns and peace of mind. It is best to have a WQA certified professional evaluate your water system, usage and quality to be sure that you have the most effective, reliable, low maintenance, properly installed and economical treatment for your water quality needs.

Is my tap water safe to drink?

It is a question every home owner asks – is my tap water safe to drink? If you are using city, or municipal, water, the short answer is probably “yes.” However, it is not always that simple. City water is supposed to be brought up to EPA standards. Due to costs and treatment technology required, this is not always the case.

Government Drinking Water Regulations

How are the government standards set? People from the government, scientific and academic communities evaluate existing and possible new standards annually. So what was considered safe last year may not be acceptable this year!

While the government decides what they consider as ok for us to drink, we can provide ourselves with much higher quality tap water. A water treatment system called “reverse osmosis” removes over 90% of just about anything that can be in your tap water and a lot of contaminants over 99%! So even though the government considers your water safe, you can enjoy much higher quality water for your family to drink, cook with and make ice with now.

What you might want to remove from your Tap Water

Just because your tap water is safe to drink does not mean it is good for your clothes, piping, and fixtures. Hardness is not considered a health hazard so most city waters are very hard. They contain large quantities of hardness minerals that wreak havoc with water heaters, piping, fixtures, dishwashers, clothes, skin and hair! A water softener is a great way to remove these minerals, which we do not need for nutrition, and cost us a lot of time and money to deal with.

The Chlorine used to keep city water sterile as it travels from the plant to your home or business is a health hazard. Chlorine produces carcinogenic by-products that we end up drinking, breathing and bathing in. Whole-house chlorine filters are relatively inexpensive to install and maintain. The chlorine has done its job; we do not need it in our homes.

Think about this: less than half of 1% of city water is used for human consumption. Over half of city water, on average, is used for non-residential purposes such as commercial industrial, fire and hydrant flushing. We are treating over 99.5% of city water for non human consumption. Someday we will just treat water for how it is going to be used at a much lower cost for higher quality tap water!

The Evolution of a Water Softener

Water softening services are necessary in most parts of the country, including Central Pennsylvania. Many water customers suffer from soap scum, spotty dishes, graying clothes, mineral deposits on faucets, and dry skin. Hard water is the culprit. Luckily, the modern water softener can clear up all of these issues, leaving the customer with crystal clear water that does not damage clothes, dishes, skin, or hardware.

A Brief History of Hard Water

The term “hard water” comes from olden days when people would refer to water as “hard to clean”. They realized that certain waters made the job of cleaning clothes “hard” because of minerals, like calcium and magnesium. It was discovered that water filtered through columns of some soils had their mineral content reduced and worked better for cleaning. The soil contained natural zeolites that exchanged hardness minerals out of the water. Soon, artificial ion exchange resins were developed that were more efficient and practical for removing hard water minerals from water.

Modern Water Softeners

We’ve come a long way from the days of inefficient water softeners. Today, computerized controllers allow for fine programming of the water softening process, achieving higher efficiencies and reducing regeneration water use. Modern water softener technologies include:

“Sensor” Softeners – These softeners “sense” the softness of the treated water or the state of the resin. However, they are plagued with reliability issues, costing the customer time and money.

Twin Tank Softeners – A twin tank softener alternates between two resin tanks, providing customers with 24/7 high efficiency soft water when sized properly with reliable controllers. These softeners tend to be expensive and reduce water volume available to the customer as they regenerate anytime as needed. The control valves are sensitive to water conditions and require more maintenance that conventional softeners.

Catalytic Water Conditioning – Ceramic beads covered with a catalyst, which, in theory, causes hardness minerals to precipitate onto their surface, rub against each other releasing microscopic minerals back into the water. These particles supposedly do not bind to soaps and detergents like the dissolved hard minerals do; therefore they reduce the effects of hard water. This process does not produce “soft” water, but it also does not require salt, electricity or regeneration water. In certain water conditions this technology is coupled with sequestering agents to increase its effectiveness. This is an ongoing maintenance and expense. Additionally, this method requires chemicals added to the water.

Electronic Anti-Scaling – Another conditioning technology involves wrapping an electric wire around the water pipe at the point of entry to the customer’s building and hooking it to a device that generates an electrical signal that supposedly transforms the hardness minerals in the water in a manor the prevents them from “sticking” to plumbing, soaps and detergents. All objective study of this method indicate that it is not effective.

An on-site water test is necessary for an accurate recommendation for treating your water. However if you really want to soften your water, you will need to use water softening services with a salt regenerated softener. With today’s technology, you can achieve high efficiencies, and low salt and water use, while enjoying all of the benefits and savings of truly soft water.

American Clear Water

Mechanicsburg, PA 717-691-8632

American Clear Water is a water treatment company that specializes in well water treatment, hard water treatment, water softeners, home water treatment, home water softening systems, & home water filtration systems.